Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 12th, 2020

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

It is a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I am very pleased with the intent of Madame Lalonde's motion here. I would be willing to accept her motion as a friendly amendment to my motion so that we can move forward. Again, I think we're all clear that this has everything to do with our veterans. I certainly wasn't looking to lay blame. If removing the word “government” gets us to where we need to be, I'm very, very pleased to be involved in that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, Mr. Brassard.

I will give the floor back to MP Lalonde, who still actually had the floor before I interrupted her.

Could you reread the motion with your proposed amendment?

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

So, Mr. Brassard, just look at your motion, and we'll go together on this one if I may: “That the committee is disappointed in the backlog of applications and reports this to the House, and that the government respond.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

This is an amendment to MP Brassard's original motion, so we will have to vote on that first.

I see that MP Casey's hand is raised. Is it referring to MP Lalonde's amendment? No? Okay.

We'll call the question on the amendment.

Madam Clerk, could you reread the amendment?

[The Clerk]

What I have here is this: “That the committee is disappointed in the backlog of applications and reports this to the House, and that the government respond.”

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We now need to vote on the amended motion.

Is there any discussion?

MP Casey, you have the floor.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

We're on the main motion, as amended by a friendly or otherwise voted-upon motion.

I will not be supporting the motion. I understand that some of my colleagues will be. I will not be supporting it, solely on the basis that it is premature.

We have barely started this study. We have heard from some, but not all, of the witnesses. We have undertaken to witnesses, to the veterans community and to the House that we're going to do a thorough study, with multiple elements to the study, and that we're going to report back to the House with a summary of the evidence, with our impressions of the evidence and with our proposed solutions.

For us to prejudge where we're going to land on this.... It may be a majority report. There may be minority reports. There may be any combination or permutation of advice that we're going to give the House and the veterans community when this is done, but for us to prejudge the outcome of the work of this committee does a disservice to the members of this committee. I think it does a disservice to the witnesses from whom we have not yet heard. I think it does a disservice to the veterans community. Not only that, but even if we offered this prejudgment to the House today, what does that say to the witnesses who come next week on this topic? “We've already decided on the outcome. It doesn't matter what your testimony is.”

I think this is completely premature and completely inappropriate. Whether you're Liberal, Conservative, Bloc or NDP, this is not the right way to do parliamentary committee work, and I'll be voting against it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, MP Casey.

I see that MP Brassard has his hand up as well.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I see this as an important indicator to the veterans community—and I know Mr. Casey spoke about the veterans community—that we are, in fact, as a committee, disappointed at the current state of the backlog. To indicate that in a formal way is an important message to send to the veterans community.

On the issue of precluding anything, I don't think it does. I think we will have our witnesses come next week, as we did today. They offered very pragmatic solutions to this problem, many of which I expect will end up in the final report. I think this does send a message to the veterans community, and I am asking everyone to support it.

Again, I appreciate Mrs. Lalonde's amendment on this. I think it accurately reflects what my intent was.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

I will move to calling the question.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

May I ask for a recorded vote, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Yes, of course.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 10; nays 1 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We'll move on very quickly here because I know everyone needs another stretch, as we're now working on the fourth hour of this meeting. I want to remind everybody that we are confirmed to meet next on Monday and Wednesday from 3:30 to 5:30. This is hopefully going to be our new regular time slot. At that point, we will resume the study of the backlog and hear from more witnesses. These will be our last two meetings on the backlog, which means we will soon start our next study, on the Royal Canadian Legion and other veterans organizations and their financial health during and after COVID-19.

I'd like to propose that all parties send their witness lists as soon as possible, in order of priority, to the clerk. In fact, we will need some by end of day tomorrow. I know this doesn't leave much time, but that will give the clerk at least one week to invite witnesses to the meetings that will take place on November 23, 25 and 30. Normally we have a hard deadline. I propose that you send what you have now as preferences for witnesses and that we have a hard deadline next Wednesday, assuming the clerk is fine with that, for the remaining witnesses. We just don't want to lose the opportunity to start this study before we rise for Christmas. I don't want to lose any particular meetings.

Is everyone okay with that? I'm seeing a lot of nodding heads.

We hope to have the report on the backlog ready for distribution by December 1. The committee will then be able to review it and we'll be on track to table it before the House adjourns for our holidays. Assuming there are no more bumps in the road and we can maintain our schedule, we have a good runway to get that in before we rise.

That's it. If there are no questions about any of the future meetings coming up, I would suggest we give everybody a break and adjourn our meeting.

Thank you very much, everybody. It was a productive meeting. We got through a lot today.

Thank you, Madam Clerk, and thank you to all the technical folks in Ottawa.